Hello All,

I've made it back from Chicago and the 2009 NOOD Regatta.  What an experience.  Besides sailing with some very talented trimmers and tacticians, it was an awesome opportunity to learn from other boats with every form of professional sailors.  We had a slip right next to Nightmare, a GL 70 with a pro crew.  What a beautiful machine.  Watching the 70s sail at the starting line really blows you away, they look like freight trains the way they cut and haul through the water!

In three days we had every kind of Midwest weather.  Thursday and Friday we had rain and storms, hail and shelf clouds which made everyone duck and cover.  Luckily on Mosquito we were equiped with a laptop and satillite weather info which aloud me to try my best to keep us out of the worst of it.  Saturday was dead calm and deathly sunny.  We ended up with just two races through Saturday, with one after the storms on Friday and one in a burb of wind in the later afternoon on Saturday. Sunday was almost ideal with a light 3 to 8 knot NE breese.  After only one race Sunday we ended up with a very expensive per mile three race regatta weekend! 

Although the stress of the deliveries, weather, and an unfamiliar boat and crew wear on you, the good racing, and chance to learn a lot really made it all worth it. 

Thanks to the skippers and crew of Mosquito for having me along!

Joe

Hello All,

This weekend is the Chicago NOODs.  I will be making my first trip to this national traveling regatta.  Although my regular boat will not be attending, I've arranged to sail with Mosquito, a Farr 395.  I do not have any experience on this particular boat, but it will be good practice for me as they fly an asymmetric kite off a bow sprite.  Coming off the Snow Goose which is, up until recently, been a symmetric only boat, this weekend should be a good learning experience.  

Owner and skipper Dave Radkte has assigned me as one of the trimmers, which I am very excited about.  This is a position I walk into well, although there is always a learning curve. 

Results will be posted soon!

Joe

Hello all,

Well you know that the sailing season is under way when the calls come in and the schedule fills up for the years racing.  After attending South Shore Yacht Clubs crew search meeting on behalf of Art Mitchel and the Snow Goose, I spent quite a bit of time putting together my final schedule for the season. 

Posted on the Schedule link to the left is a calender with month, week and agenda formats for viewing my racing time line.  Most of my time this summer will be spent aboard the Snow Goose, Rascal (a soling out of Milwaukee Yacht Club) and a few other boats, mainly Syrena and possible Mosquito.   

Now all we need is perfect sailing conditions for all the regattas and races and we'll be all set!

Cheers

~ Joe

Hello All,

Recently I was able to take two very interesting and informative sailing classes.  The first was Sail Theory and Trim with Nick Hayes through the Milwaukee Community Sailing Center's Winter Course program.  There was a good turnout with the crowd mostly consisting of Sailing Center members and MAST racers.  The course focused on fairly basic trim techniques.  Discussions on use of back stay was particularly interesting. 

On Sunday, I attended the North U racing rules seminar at the Milwaukee Yacht Club.  The course was taught by Bill Gladstone and was outstanding!  Bill organized and ran the course incredibly efficiently and covered almost every imaginable area of upwind, downwind, and starting rule.  Although I'm sure one could always come up with something new, and I'm sure there are judges out there who have seen it, it was still very informative.  I thought I was well versed before, but now I'm much more confident in my knowledge of the racing rules.  I would recommend this course to anyone interested. 

This coming Thursday will be part two of Nick Hayes's Sail Theory and Trim course.  I will be attending, and I hope others will join me.  Nick hopes to continue on the topics of the first class and focus extensively on spinnaker handling and theory.  I'm am looking forward to the later as I struggle with teaching spinnaker sailing at the Sailing Center. 

Joe